Student Learning Goals & Outcomes
Student learning goals and outcomes have been established by °Ç¸ç³Ô¹Ï to articulate answers to the following questions:
- What do we want students to know by the time they finish a course or a major?
- What do we want students to be able to do with what they know?
The identification and refinement of student learning outcomes is a part of a cyclical
process to improve both teaching and learning. The instructional cycle is a process
that most effectively occurs at the program level in the hands of the faculty who
understand the practices, conventions, and methods that their disciplines convey to
majors.
The Assessment Cycle
The assessment cycle connects student learning goals, curriculum design, learning opportunities, assessment, and the ongoing refinement of courses and programs.
- Identify student learning goals
- Design the course or curriculum to meet goals
- Provide learning opportunities
- Assess student learning to identify revisions to courses or curriculum
- Use assessment results to revise goals, teaching methodologies, or curriculum
Faculty members have designed learning outcomes for their programs by discussing what they believe is essential to student learning in their disciplines. Usually those discussions are rooted in the skills and knowledge that faculty members teach in their own courses, as well as in the accepted practices of their academic disciplines. Once faculty members have agreed on program goals for student learning, they can use them as guides for articulating new or revised learning goals for their own courses. Student learning goals represent the structure and character of the particular discipline in which they are situated and the collective wisdom of the faculty.